Wiki News/Weekend Box Office: 'Sonic X: Return to Soleanna' wins second week; On its' way to $200 million in total
Well, once again, we've arrived at a Saturday, and you know what that means: time to look at the Weekend Box Office Report. This week, the big deals in theaters included '''The Karate Kid' and The A-Team, where non of them will be taking over from Sonic X: Return to Soleanna, as it's expecting to make $75m on its' second week, and leading up to Friday, many box office analysts considered The A-Team the film to beat. However, it now appears that The Karate Kid may have been a wolf in sheep's clothing: the film's set to earn an impressive $52m. How does that compare to The A-Team? Almost double: projections are placing that 80's retread around $27m for the weekend. Did anyone see this coming? Is The A-Team a flop, or are the projections looking worse than they actually are? Hey, is anyone still watching Sex and The City 2? Find out answers to all these questions and more below, my gentle Examiner readers... Well, there was a lot of speculation as to which film was going to come out on top this weekend: The A-Team or The Karate Kid. Now that the numbers are looking a little more solid, it appears that in the race to bring 80's icons back to the silver screen, Will Smith's kid and Jackie Chan have trumped Face, Murdock, and B.A. Barraccus: The Karate Kid is going to take the weekend with close to $52m, while The A-Team is hovering down near $27m. Let's take a closer look at the top ten below, my precious snowflakes: 1. SONIC X: RETURN TO SOLEANNA: $60 million for the weekend, $200m cumulative Sonic the Hedgehog returns to the big screen and is better than ever. With his friends Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, and girlfriend Amy Rose and the rest of the cast back to action, they discover a new villain taking over the world. In the movie, Sonic returns to Soleanna to spend time with Elise, where King Lydio, a new born villain attacks Soleanna, and the faith of Elise's hometown is no longer safe. Indeed Sonic is making a lot of money, this could be the meaning if he'll might be winning his first Academy Awards next year like The Dark Knight does. But it is actually going to be nominated? Well, becareful what you wish for audiences. When it comes like this, it should sometimes happen. 2. THE KARATE KID: $52 million for the weekend There's going to be a whole lotta talk come Monday morning about whether or not Will Smith's kid, Jaden Smith, has proved that he's already a movie star. The kid's only appeared in a few other movies-- The Pursuit of Happyness and The Day The Earth Stood Still-- but already he's got a $52m opening under his belt. Some may claim that it's the franchise, not the lead, that brought people into theaters, but I'm not convinced. Let's all just assume that a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reboot on ABC might not be completely out of the question in a few years. Congrats to all involved, even though I'll probably never see the movie. 2. THE A-TEAM: $27 million for the weekend Despite the fact that the A-Team remake didn't earn terrible reviews (it's somewhere in the middle over on Rotten Tomatoes), the film seems to have failed to be a great, big moneymaker for its home studio. This kinda confuses me, as the reviews I've read from the critics I follow seem to indicate the film's a helluva lot of fun. Then again, it could've been the sight of flying tanks and an MMA fighter where Mr. T used to be that turned people away from the flick: generally, such sights are considered reasons not to see a movie. I'll be seeing The A-Team later today and will have a review up afterwards. Until that time, we're free to speculate on whether or not it's any good. This box office seems to indicate that it, well, isn't. Or, moreover, that people didn't expect it to be. If word of mouth is good, though, it could still earn back some of its reported $100m budget back. 3. SHREK: FOREVER AFTER: $17.5m for the weekend, $211m cumulative It seems like we've been talking about this film forever, doesn't it? (Ed. note-- I just realized that some may take that as a weak pun; none was intended) I've been writing about Shrek 4 in the top spot for the past month, and at this point there's barely anything to add to the discussion. I can tell you that I heard a rumor earlier this week that indicates that Dreamworks might not hold to their promise of "no more Shrek movies", but it's unclear whether a fifth go-round might end up on home video or in theaters. I'm inclined to give Dreamworks the benefit of the doubt, but not because they're not prone to beating us over the head with sequels: I think this one-- despite the fact that it's been number one for a month-- has shown (when compared to earnings of the past three Shrek films) that there's some audience fatigue settling in for these characters. Let's all hope that I'm right. 4. GET HIM TO THE GREEK: $9.5m, $36.1m cumulative Well, Greek is hanging in there, but it's failed to become the box office blockbuster that everyone involved (especially Russell Brand) was hoping for. There's a bit of an indication here that U.S. audiences aren't really all that interested in seeing Brand as the lead actor in a comedy, but then again, one could easily say the same thing for Jonah Hill. Both have been in movies that raked in serious cash as supporting actors or co-leads, but it looks like the two of them together as co-leads hasn't caught on yet. It's worth pointing out, however, that this has held onto its placement in the top ten, so it could be getting some solid word of mouth. If you've seen it, drop me a line: I can't decide whether or not I wanna subject myself to it, even though I'm usually a fan of all involved. Before we know whether or not Brand's a true movie star, we'll have to see how his next, big lead role does at the box office. 5. KILLERS: $8m for the weekend, $30m cumulative Attention, Katherine Heigl fans: Killers has bombed. It doesn't look like the word of mouth was atrocious enough to get it knocked down further in the top ten, but a $30m cumulative doesn't speak well for this one. Oh, well: Heigl's got her first big bomb on her hands. Everyone has to have one sooner or later, right? Ashton Kutcher, meanwhile, is earning enough money with his high-larious camera commercials that this isn't a concern for him. Oh, man, does that guy make me want to buy a camera. As for the rest of the top ten, it appears that Prince of Persia's hanging in there in sixth place with only $6.5m (and a low, low $72m cumulative-- ouch, Disney). Marmaduke, which many considered to be just the latest sign that the apocalypse was upon us, didn't turn on anyone-- it's at $22m after a $6.5m weekend. This is good news for anyone living in fear of a Marmaduke franchise. Sex and The City 2-- our favorite franchise punching bag for the past few weeks-- comes in at 8th place with $5.2m for the weekend and an $84.5m total (remember: it cost over $100m to make that movie, and all the fuzzy math in the world can't explain all those terrible reviews). Ninth place goes to Iron Man 2, which is sitting at...$299.2m total. Man, just under $300m. You'll get there, Iron Man 2. Finally, a movie I saw last weekend and really enjoyed, Splice, has a cumulative of $12.7m and...well, that's just not very good, is it? It'll do another $2.5m this weekend, but expect to see it on DVD sooner rather than later. That's too bad, because Splice was pretty cool. Oh, well.